Hypertension - Hear
HEAR is the enema your iTunes needs. Bringing you the most thought-provoking and up-to-date music reviews this side of Lester Bangs, HEAR sifts through the ever growing mountain of press releases and promos to only feature albums, EPs, LPs and mixes that we want to, not that we have to. Also, we try and make things make sense in 200 words or less so that you can just listen to the music.
Golden Staph Cassette Tape
For those who found a cassette walkman to be an item of private humiliation at the dawn of the Discman, never fear because Golden Staph are here. Resurrecting an all but obsolete technological artefact in magnetic tape, the lightning bolt band of do-it-yourself Perth luddites are one of many independents snubbing the digital era in favour of good old-fashioned tangibility.
Dick Diver, Arks Up
Dick Diver sound like underground 80s Australia. Arks Up recalls the best parts of the Hunters & Collectors discography: the songs gather around raw, trudging bass lines that sound best filling the pungent, carpeted rooms of old pubs.
With clever, multi-member pop songwriting, The Go-Betweens also come to mind: the accents not dropped but accentuated; the guitar work sharp, tonal, puncturing.
Black Lips Interview
The Black Lips just may have finally grown up. Sure Jared threw down and got punched in the face by some shitty Brooklyn band but those guys suck anyway, and that punch won't make them any better. But there are fewer and fewer reports of the Lips whipping out their junk for the hell of it, vomiting on each other, and pissing off (and on.
Blank Realm, Heatless Ark
Intuition plays a large part in the nature of music. Whether learned on their chosen instrument or approaching it from a new angle, the ability of a group of players to lock into and interweave with each other's sounds is a crucial dynamic. This instinctual nature shines through strongly on Blank Realm's debut vinyl release, Heatless Ark.
Telekinesis!
Michael Benjamin Lerner understands that simplicity is paramount to good songwriting. That old mantra of "keep it simple, stupid" - heard everywhere from sports fields to boardrooms - obviously resonated with the Seattle songwriter. As a result, Telekinesis! is brilliant, shamelessly straightforward pop music.
Privileged Woes, Oh Mercy
The croon is making a comeback.
I'm not talkin' Bing Crosby crooning; I mean the kind the New Romantics revitalised, and that The Smiths have stamped eternally, indelibly cool. It's in new bands like Cut Off Your Hands and Foreign Born, and Melbourne's shockingly able upstarts Oh Mercy.
After gaining considerable buzz off their EP, In The Nude for Love, Oh Mercy's debut LP, Privileged Woes, is a killer collection of songs for springtime, with a wry sense of humor and catchy melodies.
God Is Saying This To You
Dharma bum with guitar, Kurt Vile, is another self-recording US artist of the moment, but perhaps the most anomalous and welcome yet. Taken by name - a serious misnomer - and the company he keeps, alone, Vile could be the next tapes-and-bong Surf thing by numbers, but instead he's a finger picking Zen simplest; more about clean, pastoral melodies and journeyman lyrics than any going lo-fi style.
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